


The Ghosts That We Knew

by coldwinterrose (Eris13)



Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: BAMF Peggy Carter, Bucky Barnes Remembers, Gen, Hydra (Marvel), Old Peggy Carter, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-25
Updated: 2015-08-25
Packaged: 2018-04-17 03:44:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4651002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eris13/pseuds/coldwinterrose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As Peggy comes home from the funeral of Howard and Maria Stark, she finds she has an unexpected visitor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Ghosts That We Knew

**Author's Note:**

> The idea for this came to me when I was watching CA: TFA and thought, what if Hydra sent the Winter Soldier to kill Peggy after he killed Howard? This is what I came up with. Also, the title comes from the Mumford and Sons song of the same name. The song doesn't have much of anything to do with the story itself really, I just thought it fit well and I couldn't think of anything else.

It had been a long, sad day, and Peggy was glad it was finally over. The funeral of Howard and Maria Stark was everything the world expected it to be, a public tribute to Howard Stark’s great legacy, memorializing the accomplishments of the man rather than the man himself. Oh sure, Maria was remembered as well, but Howard, as usual, overshadowed everything. Howard’s son Anthony had been in attendance, but he had been so drunk that he could barely stand, much less able to contribute much to the proceedings. Obadiah Stane, Howard’s right hand man, had taken up the task in Anthony’s stead, and while he’d done an admirable job of it, Peggy thought the whole thing held an air of detachment more suited to a business meeting rather than the funeral it was supposed to be.

As she walked into her DC home the last conversation she’d had with Howard drifted into her thoughts. He said there was something going on in SHIELD that they didn’t know about, something dark and sinister, and to do with Hydra, which had made little sense to her. He’d also mentioned something about the Winter Soldier, who as far as she knew was just a myth rather than anything to be taken seriously. It was quite possible Howard had been drunk when they’d last spoke, but she couldn’t say for sure. Due to her distraction she hadn’t noticed the man who sat in the shadows. The sound of a gun cocking in the vicinity of her sitting room however quickly shook her from her reverie.

As she reached for the gun she kept hidden in her purse, the assassin fired a warning shot aimed at the ground by her feet. He then proceeded to motion with his gun to put her purse on the ground. As she dropped and kicked it toward the man, she raised her hands to show that she wasn’t going to be making any more sudden movements. 

“If you’re here to kill me, I’m quite afraid you've missed your chance.” Granted it was a show of bravado on her part, but damn if she wasn’t going to go down without a fight.

The man shifted slightly in his seat, and in the movement she noticed a glint from the man’s right hand. He was holding a picture frame, one taken from her fireplace mantle if she had to guess. He threw the frame at her feet and asked in a gravelly voice, “Who is he?”

Slowly, to show she was only going for the frame and nothing else, she bent down and picked it up. She didn’t know what she expected to see when she picked the framed photo up, but it certainly wasn’t a picture Steve, the one taken before he had been given the serum. Confused, she glanced back to the man still hidden in the shadow and asked, calmly as she could so as not to startle him, “Why do you ask?”

“I… I know him. I recognize him. How?” The man’s voice, which was mostly devoid of any emotion, held a note of confused bafflement, as if the act of recognizing someone in and of itself confused him.

Peggy decided to use the chance of a conversation to stall for time. After all, if she could just stall long enough, she might be able to come up with a plan to get out of this unscathed. “His name is Steve Rogers. I would guess that you probably know him better as Captain America.”

“Steve….” The man whispered to himself. Then louder, “I… I know that name. I know that face.”

“Yes. As I said he’s Captain America.”

“No. I don’t know who Captain America is. But... I know Steve. _Where is he?_ ” The man asked that last question with more emotion in his voice than she’d heard out of him yet.

Peggy didn’t know what to make of this. Who knew about Steve Rogers but didn’t know anything about Captain America? How was that even possible? And how did this man not know that Steve Rogers was dead?

“He’s… not here right now,” she said hesitantly. Peggy got the feeling that if she just came out and said “he’s dead” things would go very wrong, very fast, which was the last thing she wanted. Especially since she still hadn’t come up with good plan for dealing with the intruder.

“I just… I want to see him. _Please._ ”

Though Peggy was confused as to why the man asked her to see Steve of all people, she could still use it to her advantage. If she could get the man to put down his gun and come out of the shadows, she could somehow disarm him. It was a long shot, granted, given that he was obviously much stronger than her, but she was hoping he would underestimate her. It wouldn't be the first time she’d gotten one over on someone using that very same strategy.

“As I said, Steve isn’t here, but I can take you to him. I’m going to need for you to drop your gun and come with me, however, before I can take you to where he is.”

The man hesitated, as if warring with the idea of going to see Steve, or finishing the task he was sent to accomplish. Peggy hoped like hell that his urge to see Steve would win out. If it didn’t, she didn’t have any other ideas of how to get out of this. She breathed an almost silent sigh of relief when he lowered the gun slightly and stood up from the couch.

Who she saw when the man stepped out of the shadows however, was the last man on Earth that she expected to see.

“Sergeant Barnes?” Peggy gasped, because as impossible as it seemed to be, that’s clearly who this man was. His hair was much longer than it was the last time she’d seen him, and his left arm was covered in a metal armor of some sort, but it was clearly Sergeant James Barnes nonetheless.

Sergeant Barnes cocked his head, as if confused. “Who the hell is Sergeant Barnes?”

Several things clicked into Peggy’s head at that moment. During her tenure as director of SHIELD, she’d heard tall tales about the Winter Soldier. One of the things that had remained consistent throughout the stories was the fact that he’d had a metal left arm, just like the one Barnes was wearing right now. In their last conversation, Howard had mentioned something going on in SHIELD that neither of them had been aware of, something he’d just recently stumbled on by accident. Shortly after this conversation he, along with his wife, ended up dead in what appeared to be a simple car accident

The thing that horrified her the most though was the fact it was clear to her now that something had been done to Sergeant Barnes while he’d been a POW during the war, though at the time military doctors didn’t think Zola had been successful in any attempt to recreate the serum in Barnes. Added to the fact only an arm, a left arm to be precise, had been recovered by search teams sent out to look for Sergeant Barnes’ remains after the war was over, it was obvious that not only was the Winter Soldier not a myth as she’d first thought, but that he and James Barnes were one in the same.

“Oh Sergeant Barnes, what did they do to you?” Peggy breathed, bringing her hand up to her mouth in horror. It was all she could think to say. Clearly whoever had kept him captive, and she was strongly starting to suspect it was Hydra given her last conversation with Howard, had done much more to him over the years than just replace his arm.

“Who is Sergeant Barnes?” he asked again, sounding more agitated this time.

“You are. But… you don’t remember that, do you? Tell me, what is it you do remember?” 

“I… I don’t… I can’t….”

It was clear that the question upset him, which was the last thing Peggy wanted. So, in the most soothing voice she could muster, she said “Okay. That’s okay. Why don’t we sit down and try to figure out what’s going on? I can tell you all about Steve if you want.”

Before Peggy could even finish her sentence, Sergeant Barnes automatically sat back down on the couch where he’d been when she’d first walked in. Whatever had happened to him over the years, it was clear that it wasn’t good if he responded like that to a simple request. She tried to keep thoughts like that at bay however, since she needed to be as clear headed as possible. 

She took a deep breath, and as calmly as she could, walked over to the couch and sat down. For the next hour she told him all she could about James Barnes, and about Steve Rogers, all while she planned what her next move should be to take whoever did this down and ensure that it could never happen again.

**Author's Note:**

> I acknowledge that its much more likely that he would have taken the shot while she was distracted, but I think the combination of being off the ice for too long and seeing a picture of Steve before the serum would start to jog _something_ in Bucky's memory. 
> 
> Also, would anyone want me to continue this? I have a vague idea of how Steve being found in the ice would go in this universe, but I don't know if anyone would want to read that or not. Let me know if you do!


End file.
